Exclusive -- Disappointed Author Blazes Away at Hollywood
Gunfight at Brokeback Corral
By Kimberly Collins
March 20, 2006 -- Not long after the Academy Awards were all said and done, author Annie Proulx of Brokeback Mountain fame threw a fit in the pages of The Guardian. The problem? Her Brokeback pony failed to win Oscar’s race for Best Picture. It won three other Oscars, but not The King of the Annual Hollywood Rodeo. For the millions of Americans who have not seen the film, it is based on Proulx’s short story originally published in The New Yorker in 1997.
Admittedly, Proulx wasn’t the only one surprised when presenter Jack Nicholson opened the envelope and announced the winner is . . . Crash. Or “Trash,” as Proulx prefers -- the movie about race relations in Los Angeles. Even Paul Haggis, writer-director of Crash, said he was “shocked” to win the industry’s highest honor. For months, the rumor had been that Brokeback Mountain was the favorite for Best Picture.
Why is Proulx so upset? Beyond innate human competitiveness, what? It appears she believes Hollywood is just not ready to play a leading role in acknowledging the homosexuality of her characters Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal). “We should have known,” she wrote, “the conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture.” The problem with the academy? It’s out of touch “with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days.”
Of course, Hollywood was not totally “out of touch.” After all, the academy did award Brokeback Oscars for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score. This is no fewer awards than Crash won.
In addition, Hollywood and the academy have certainly proven they are not exactly ashamed of homosexuality in film. Take note of the Best Actor awards given to Philip Seymour Hoffman for this year’s Capote and Tom Hanks for 1993’s Philadelphia. If homosexual relationships are truly “what is stirring contemporary culture,” then it’s arguable that Hollywood is, in fact, not just in touch today but has been stirring that pot for some time now.
The crowning of Brokeback Mountain as Best Picture would have been the ultimate affirmation for Proulx and the homosexual community. Proulx’s desired happy ending was for her cowboys to receive a pat on the back from Hollywood. The world could have witnessed anew an empathetic understanding of evolving “love” and the plight of homosexuals in society.
“Love.” That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Those who push tolerance of homosexuality in America believe the proposition that accepting and affirming homosexual behavior is all about love, with a dose of compassion.
In his acceptance sermon before the assembled hosts, Brokeback Director Ang Lee was on message: “Ennis and Jack . . . have taught all of us who made Brokeback Mountain so much about not just all the gay men and women, whose love is denied by society, but just as important, the greatness of love itself.”
In his review of the film Roger Ebert emphasizes the love connection as well: “Brokeback Mountain has been described as ‘a gay cowboy movie,’ which is a cruel simplification. It is the story of a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only great passion either one will ever feel. Their tragedy is universal. It could be about two women, or lovers from different religious or ethnic groups -- any ‘forbidden’ love.”
Ebert’s term “cruel simplification” is an apt description, but it better applies in the other direction, toward an uncritical, cruel acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle. For it is cruel and simplistic to equate homosexual physicality with love. Though minimized on film, homosexual behavior results in disease and brokenness. Individuals die, families die. Brokeback somehow barely touches on the broken relationships caused by Jack and Ennis’s “forbidden love” but does manage to blame society for their lack of fulfillment.
But is it really “loving” to honor those who engage in such destructive behavior, simply because they are passionate about their “forbidden love”? Since when did passion alone qualify as a criterion of love and truth? Didn’t we just see a ring of child pornographers arrested precisely because their “forbidden love,” their passion, was a bit misguided?
The academy did not award Brokeback Mountain the Oscar for Best Picture. Proulx can continue to point fingers at “conservative” Hollywood. Or she could engage in a little introspection. Here’s a question that might require courage in the face of shifting standards: What if, what if, Brokeback Mountain is just broke?
Kimberly Collins writes from Asheville, N.C.
